Yoruba Land Law

EGBA is, today, one of the largest of the yoruba kingdoms. It is of
recent foundation for it is only a hundred and thirty years since the
people of the many small Egba towns settled together at Abeokuta.
During this period there has been a continual conflict between the
chiefs of these towns, on the one hand anxious to retain their power
and maintain a federal form of government, and the Alakes, the obas
of the new kingdom on the other hand, who have tried to consolidate the
authority of the central government.

The Egba kingdom is coterminous with the modern administrative
unit of Egba Division. It stretches from Isheri only twelve miles from Lagos, to the River Omi in the north-east, a similar distance from
Ibadan. To the south-east are the Ijebu Remo kingdoms of Shagamu,
Iperu and Ishara; to the west lie the Egbado kingdoms and to the north
the Ibarapa kingdoms of Eruwa and Igbo-ora. Two towns have a semiindependent status within the Egba kingdom: Otta is the capital of the
Awori people, who were pushed southwards by the immigrant Egba, and
Imala is an Egbado kingdom whose people did not abandon their town
at the time of the Dahomey wars.

The boundary between the crystalline rocks of the basement complex
and the sedimentary series runs from WNW. to ESE. approximately
through Abeokuta. To the north-west of the capital the country is a
peneplain, rising to over 600 feet above sea level, surfaced in many parts
by a concretionary lateritic ironstone which gives the country an and
appearance. Rivers cut deeply and in their valley bottoms is most of the
forest of this area. East of Abeokuta, on the crystalline rocks, the country
is undulating and well watered, the forest cover increasing eastwards
towards the boundaries with Ibadan and Ijebu; in the nineteenth century,
an extensive no-man's-land lay between these territories. Southwards
the country falls towards the sea in a succession of escarpments. The
Egba kingdom is bisected by the Ogun river. At Abeokuta it lies less
than 100 feet above sea level; the west bank rises gently without any
spectacular features, but its east bank is lined with a series of granite
tors, the highest of which (north of the town) rises to over 550 feet. The
most famous of these tors is, however, the Olumo rock, around which Abeokuta is built; the caves formed naturally by the tremendous
over-hanging boulders have probably been inhabited for many
centuries.

The population of Egba Division is 394,000, of whom 97.5 per cent
are yoruba (including the Egba proper, the Owu, Awori and Egbado).

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